December 1st in Stamps Crete, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, David Ben-Gurion, George Everest

Here are some events that happened on December 1st. It could be an event or a person that died or was born on that day


1866 Born: George Everest, Welsh geographer and surveyor (b. 1790)

Colonel Sir George Everest (4 July 1790 – 1 December 1866) was a British surveyor and geographer who served as Surveyor General of India from 1830 to 1843. He is best known for having Mount Everest, the highest mountain on Earth, named in his honor.

After receiving a military education, Everest joined the East India Company and arrived in India at the age of 16. He was eventually made an assistant to William Lambton on the Great Trigonometric Survey, and replaced Lambton as superintendent of the survey in 1823. Everest was largely responsible for surveying the meridian arc from the southernmost point of India north to Nepal, a distance of about 2,400 kilometers (1,500 mi), a task which took from 1806 to 1841 to complete. He was made Surveyor General of India in 1830, retiring in 1843 and returning to England.

In 1865, the Royal Geographical Society renamed Peak XV – at the time only recently identified as the world's highest peak – in Everest's honor. Andrew Scott Waugh, his protégé and successor as surveyor general, had been responsible for putting his name forward in 1856. Everest's name was used as a compromise due to the difficulty of choosing between multiple local names for the mountain. He initially objected to the honor, as he had had nothing to do with its discovery and believed his name was not easily written or pronounced in Hindi

Cover and stamp issued by Great Britain to commemorate George Everest

1913 – Crete, having obtained self rule from Turkey after the First Balkan War, is annexed by Greece.

Crete (Greek: Κρήτη, Kríti; Ancient Greek: Κρήτη, Krḗtē) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and Corsica. It bounds the southern border of the Aegean sea. Crete lies approximately 160 km (99 mi) south of the Greek mainland. It has an area of 8,336 km2 (3,219 sq mi) and a coastline of 1,046 km (650 mi).

Following the repeated uprisings in 1841, 1858, 1889, 1895 and 1897 by the Cretan people, who wanted to join Greece, the Great Powers decided to restore order and in February 1897 sent in troops. The island was subsequently garrisoned by troops from Great Britain, France, Italy and Russia; Germany and Austro-Hungary withdrawing from the occupation in early 1898. During this period Crete was governed through a committee of admirals from the remaining four Powers. In March 1898 the Powers decreed, with the very reluctant consent of the Sultan, that the island would be granted autonomy under Ottoman suzerainty in the near future.

In September 1898 an outbreak of rioting in Candia, modern Heraklion, left over 500 Cretan Christians, and 14 British servicemen, dead. As a result, the Admirals ordered the expulsion of all Ottoman troops and administrators from the island, a move that was ultimately completed by early November. The decision to grant autonomy to the island was enforced and a High Commissioner, Prince George of Greece, appointed, arriving to take up his post in December 1898. The flag of the Cretan State was chosen by the Powers, with the white star representing the Ottoman suzenraity over the island.

In 1905, disagreements between Prince George and minister Eleftherios Venizelos over the question of the enosis (union with Greece), such as the Prince's autocratic style of government, resulted in the Theriso revolt, one of leaders of which being Eleftherios Venizelos.

Prince George resigned as High Commissioner and was replaced by Alexandros Zaimis, a former Greek prime minister, in 1906. In 1908, taking advantage of domestic turmoil in Turkey as well as the timing of Zaimis's vacation away from the island, the Cretan deputies unilaterally declared union with Greece.

With the break out of the First Balkan War, the Greek government declared that Crete was since then part of the Greek territory. This was not recognized internationally until 1 December 1913

Greek stamp issued in 1913 to commemorate the union of Crete with Greece

1918 – The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later known as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia) is proclaimed.

The Kingdom of Yugoslavia (Serbo-Croatian: Краљевина Југославија / Kraljevina Jugoslavija; Slovene: Kraljevina Jugoslavija) was a state in Southeast Europe and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941, during the interwar period and beginning of World War II. From 1918 to 1929, it was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Serbo-Croatian: Краљевина Срба, Хрвата и Словенаца / Kraljevina Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca; Slovene: Kraljevina Srbov, Hrvatov in Slovencev), but the term "Yugoslavia" (literally "Land of Southern Slavs") was its colloquial name due to its origins.The official name of the state was changed to "Kingdom of Yugoslavia" by King Alexander I on 3 October 1929.

The preliminary kingdom was formed in 1918 by the merger of the provisional State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (itself formed from territories of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire) with the formerly independent Kingdom of Serbia. The Kingdom of Montenegro had united with Serbia five days previously, whereas the regions of Kosovo, Vojvodina, Vardar Macedonia and most of Bosnia were parts of Serbia prior to the unification.

The state was ruled by the Serb dynasty of Karađorđević, which previously ruled the Kingdom of Serbia under Peter I from 1903 (after the May Overthrow) onward. Peter I became the first king of Yugoslavia until his death in 1921. He was succeeded by his son Alexander I, who had been regent for his father. He was known as "Alexander the Unifier" and he renamed the kingdom "Yugoslavia" in 1929. He was assassinated in Marseille by Vlado Chernozemski, a member of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), during his visit to France in 1934. The crown passed to his then-still under-aged son Peter. Alexander's cousin Paul ruled as Prince regent until 1941, when Peter II came of age. The royal family flew to London the same year, prior to the country being invaded by the Axis powers.

In April 1941, the country was occupied and partitioned by the Axis powers. A royal government-in-exile, recognized by the United Kingdom and, later, by all the Allies, was established in London. In 1944, after pressure from the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the King recognized the government of Democratic Federal Yugoslavia as the legitimate government. This was established on 2 November following the signing of the Treaty of Vis by Ivan Šubašić (on behalf of the Kingdom) and Josip Broz Tito (on behalf of the Yugoslav Partisans).

The first SHS stamps issued by Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia

See also... The revenge of Yugoslavia on Bosnian stamps of 1906



1973 Died: David Ben-Gurion, Israeli politician, 1st Prime Minister of Israel (b. 1886)

David Ben-Gurion (born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary national founder of the State of Israel and the first Prime Minister of Israel. He was the preeminent leader of the Jewish community in British Mandate Palestine from 1935 until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, which he led until 1963 with a short break in 1954-55.

Ben-Gurion's passion for Zionism, which began early in life, led him to become a major Zionist leader and Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization in 1946. As head of the Jewish Agency from 1935, and later president of the Jewish Agency Executive, he was the de facto leader of the Jewish community in Palestine, and largely led its struggle for an independent Jewish state in Mandatory Palestine. On 14 May 1948, he formally proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel, and was the first to sign the Israeli Declaration of Independence, which he had helped to write. Ben-Gurion led Israel during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and united the various Jewish militias into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Subsequently, he became known as "Israel's founding father".

Following the war, Ben-Gurion served as Israel's first Prime Minister and Minister of Defense. As Prime Minister, he helped build the state institutions, presiding over national projects aimed at the development of the country. He also oversaw the absorption of vast numbers of Jews from all over the world. A centerpiece of his foreign policy was improving relationships with the West Germans. He worked with Konrad Adenauer's government in Bonn, and West Germany provided large sums (in the Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany) in compensation for Nazi Germany's confiscation of Jewish property during the Holocaust.

In 1954 he resigned as Prime Minister and Minister of Defense but remained a member of the Knesset. He returned as Minister of Defense in 1955 after the Lavon Affair and the resignation of Pinhas Lavon. Later that year he became Prime Minister again, following the 1955 elections. Under his leadership, Israel responded aggressively to Arab guerrilla attacks, and in 1956, invaded Egypt along with British and French forces after Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal during what became known as the Suez Crisis.

He stepped down from office in 1963, and retired from political life in 1970. He then moved to Sde Boker, a kibbutz in the Negev desert, where he lived until his death. Posthumously, Ben-Gurion was named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Important People of the 20th century.

Israeli stamps depicting David Ben-Gurion

October 2nd in stamps von Hindenburg, Ferdinand Foch, Cartier, Ghetaldi, Gandhi, Svante Arrhenius, William Ramsay

Here are some events that happened on October 2nd. It could be an event or a person that died or was born on that day


1535 – Jacques Cartier discovers the present site of Montreal

Jacques Cartier (December 31, 1491 – September 1, 1557) was a Breton explorer who claimed what is now Canada for France. Jacques Cartier was the first European to describe and map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the shores of the Saint Lawrence River, which he named "The Country of Canadas", after the Iroquois names for the two big settlements he saw at Stadacona (Quebec City) and at Hochelaga (Montreal Island).

Some stamps and a First Day Cover from France and Canada depicting Jacques Cartier

1568 Born:  Marino Ghetaldi, Ragusan mathematician and physicist (d. 1626)

Marino Ghetaldi (Latin: Marinus Ghetaldus; Croatian: Marin Getaldić; 2 October 1568 – 11 April 1626) was a Ragusan scientist. A mathematician and physicist who studied in Italy, England and Belgium, his best results are mainly in physics, especially optics, and mathematics. He was one of the few students of François Viète.

Born into the Ghetaldi noble family, he was one of six children. He was known for the application of algebra in geometry and his research in the field of geometrical optics on which he wrote 7 works including the Promotus Archimedus (1603) and the De resolutione et compositione mathematica (1630). He also produced a leaflet with the solutions of 42 geometrical problems, Variorum problematum colletio, in 1607 and set grounds of algebraization of geometry. His contributions to geometry had been cited by Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens and Edmond Halley, who calculated the orbit of what is known as Halley's comet, in England.

Ghetaldi was the constructor of the parabolic mirror (66 cm in diameter), kept today at the National Maritime Museum in London. He was also a pioneer in making conic lenses. During his sojourn in Padua he met Galileo Galilei, with whom he corresponded regularly. He was a good friend to the French mathematician François Viète. He was offered the post of professor of mathematics in Old University of Leuven in Belgium, at the time one of the most prestigious university centers in Europe.

He was also engaged in politics and was the envoy of the Republic of Ragusa in Constantinople in 1606 as well as the member of the Great and Small Council, the political bodies of the Republic. He was married to Marija Sorkočević, who died giving birth to their third daughter; they had three daughters: Anica, Franica and Marija.


Croatian stamp depicting Marino Ghetaldi

1847 Born: Paul von Hindenburg, Polish-German field marshal and politician, 2nd President of Germany (d. 1934)

Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg, known simply as Paul von Hindenburg (2 October 1847 – 2 August 1934), was a German general and statesman who commanded the Imperial German Army during World War I and later became President of Germany, serving from 1925 until his death in 1934, during the Weimar Republic. He played a key role in the Nazi Machtergreifung in January 1933 when, under pressure from advisers, he appointed Adolf Hitler chancellor of a "Government of National Concentration", even though the Nazis were a minority in both the cabinet and the Reichstag.

Born to a family of minor Prussian nobility, Hindenburg joined the Prussian army in 1866 where he thereafter saw combat during the Austro-Prussian War and the Franco-Prussian conflict. He retired with the rank of General of the Infantry in 1911, but was recalled to military service at the age of 66 following the outbreak of World War I in July 1914. On August 1914, he received nationwide attention as the victor of the Battle of Tannenberg. Upon later being named Chief of the General Staff in 1916, his popularity among the German public exponentially increased to the point of giving rise to an enormous personality cult. As Kaiser Wilhelm II increasingly delegated his power as Supreme Warlord to the Army High Command, Hindenburg and his deputy, General Erich Ludendorff, ultimately established a military dictatorship that controlled Germany for the rest of the war.

Hindenburg retired again in 1919, but returned to public life in 1925 to be elected the second President of Germany. In 1932, he was persuaded to run for re-election even though he was 84 years old and in poor health, because he was considered the only candidate who could defeat Hitler. Hindenburg was re-elected in a runoff. He was opposed to Hitler and was a major player in the increasing political instability in the Weimar Republic that ended with Hitler's rise to power. He dissolved the Reichstag twice in 1932 and finally agreed to appoint Hitler Chancellor of Germany in January 1933. Hindenburg did this to satisfy Hitler's demands that he should play a part in the Weimar government, for Hitler was the leader of the Nazi party, which had won a plurality in the November 1932 elections (no party achieved a majority). In February he approved the Reichstag Fire Decree, which suspended various civil liberties, and in March he signed the Enabling Act of 1933, which gave Hitler's regime arbitrary powers. Hindenburg died the following year, after which Hitler declared himself Führer und Reichskanzler, or Supreme Leader and Chancellor, which superseded both the President and Chancellor.

Mourning issue.. See also Mourning stamps with black perforation

100 pfenning stamp and with overprints used in Luxembourg and Lorraine

1851 Born: Ferdinand Foch, French field marshal and theorist (d. 1929)

Ferdinand Foch (2 October 1851 – 20 March 1929) was a French general and military theorist who served as the Supreme Allied Commander during the First World War. An aggressive, even reckless commander at the First Marne, Flanders, and Artois campaigns of 1914–1916, Foch became the Allied Commander-in-Chief in late March 1918 in the face of the all-out German spring offensive, which pushed the Allies back using fresh soldiers and new tactics that trenches could not contain. He successfully coordinated the French, British and American efforts into a coherent whole, deftly handling his strategic reserves. He stopped the German offensive and launched a war-winning counterattack. In November 1918, Marshal Foch accepted the German cessation of hostilities and was present at the armistice of 11 November.

Stamp issued in France for the war fund commemorating Ferdinand Foch

1852 Born: William Ramsay, Scottish-English chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1916)

Sir William Ramsay (2 October 1852 – 23 July 1916) was a Scottish chemist who discovered the noble gases and received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1904 "in recognition of his services in the discovery of the inert gaseous elements in air" along with his collaborator, John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics that same year for their discovery of argon. After the two men identified argon, Ramsay investigated other atmospheric gases. His work in isolating argon, helium, neon, krypton and xenon led to the development of a new section of the periodic table.

Stamp issued by Guinea Bissau depicting William Ramsay

1869 Born: Mahatma Gandhi, Indian freedom fighter, activist and philosopher (d. 1948)

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist, who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British Rule, and in turn inspire movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahātmā (Sanskrit: "great-souled", "venerable"), first applied to him in 1914 in South Africa, is now used throughout the world.

Born and raised in a Hindu family in coastal Gujarat, western India, Gandhi was trained in law at the Inner Temple, London, and called to the bar at age 22 in June 1891. After two uncertain years in India, where he was unable to start a successful law practice, he moved to South Africa in 1893 to represent an Indian merchant in a lawsuit. He went on to stay for 21 years. It was in South Africa that Gandhi raised a family, and first employed nonviolent resistance in a campaign for civil rights. In 1915, aged 45, he returned to India. He set about organizing peasants, farmers, and urban laborers to protest against excessive land-tax and discrimination. Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, and above all for achieving Swaraj or self-rule.

The same year Gandhi adopted the Indian loincloth, or short dhoti and, in the winter, a shawl, both woven with yarn hand-spun on a traditional Indian spinning wheel, or charkha, as a mark of identification with India's rural poor. Thereafter, he lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community, ate simple vegetarian food, and undertook long fasts as a means of self-purification and political protest. Bringing anti-colonial nationalism to the common Indians, Gandhi led them in challenging the British-imposed salt tax with the 400 km (250 mi) Dandi Salt March in 1930, and later in calling for the British to Quit India in 1942. He was imprisoned for many years, upon many occasions, in both South Africa and India.

Gandhi's vision of an independent India based on religious pluralism was challenged in the early 1940s by a new Muslim nationalism which was demanding a separate Muslim homeland carved out of India. In August 1947, Britain granted independence, but the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two dominions, a Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. As many displaced Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs made their way to their new lands, religious violence broke out, especially in the Punjab and Bengal. Eschewing the official celebration of independence in Delhi, Gandhi visited the affected areas, attempting to provide solace. In the months following, he undertook several fasts unto death to stop religious violence. The last of these, undertaken on 12 January 1948 when he was 78, also had the indirect goal of pressuring India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan. Some Indians thought Gandhi was too accommodating.  Among them was Nathuram Godse, a Hindu nationalist, who assassinated Gandhi on 30 January 1948 by firing three bullets into his chest

Stamps from various countries depicting Gandhi

1927 Died: Svante Arrhenius, Swedish physicist and chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1859)

Svante August Arrhenius (19 February 1859 – 2 October 1927) was a Swedish scientist. Originally a physicist, but often referred to as a chemist, Arrhenius was one of the founders of the science of physical chemistry. He received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1903, becoming the first Swedish Nobel laureate. In 1905, he became director of the Nobel Institute, where he remained until his death.

Arrhenius was the first to use principles of physical chemistry to estimate the extent to which increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide are responsible for the Earth's increasing surface temperature. In the 1960s, Charles David Keeling demonstrated that the quantity of human-caused carbon dioxide emissions into the air is enough to cause global warming.

The Arrhenius equation, Arrhenius acid, Arrhenius base, lunar crater Arrhenius, Martian crater Arrhenius, the mountain of Arrheniusfjellet, and the Arrhenius Labs at Stockholm University were so named to commemorate his contributions to science.

Swedish stamps depicting Svante Arrhenius

July 31st in stamps Columbus discovers Trinidad, Franz Listz, Balkan Entente, Baudouin, Andrew Johnson, Peter Rosegger

Here are some events that happened on July 31st. It could be an event or a person that died or was born on that day


1498 – On his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to discover the island of Trinidad.


Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies 11 km (6.8 mi) off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. Though geographically part of the South American continent, from a socio-economic standpoint it is often referred to as the southernmost island in the Caribbean. With an area of 4,768 km2 (1,841 sq mi), it is also the fifth largest in the West Indies.

Caribs and Arawaks lived in Trinidad long before Christopher Columbus encountered the islands on his third voyage on 31 July 1498. The island remained Spanish until 1797, but it was largely settled by French colonists from the French Caribbean, especially Martinique. In 1889 the two islands became a single British Crown colony. Trinidad and Tobago obtained self-governance in 1958 and independence from the United Kingdom in 1962


Some stamps from Trinidad as well as stamps depicting Columbus or his voyages

1875 Born: Andrew Johnson, American general and politician, 17th President of the United States (b. 1808)

Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808 – July 31, 1875) was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. He assumed the presidency as he was vice president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a Democrat who ran with Lincoln on the National Union ticket, coming to office as the Civil War concluded. He favored quick restoration of the seceded states to the Union without protection for the former slaves. This led to conflict with the Republican-dominated Congress, culminating in his impeachment by the House of Representatives in 1868. He was acquitted in the Senate by one vote. His main accomplishment as president was the Alaska purchase.

Johnson was born in poverty in Raleigh, North Carolina, and never attended school. He was apprenticed as a tailor and worked in several frontier towns before settling in Greeneville, Tennessee. He served as alderman and mayor there before being elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1835. After brief service in the Tennessee Senate, Johnson was elected to the House of Representatives in 1843, where he served five two-year terms. He became governor of Tennessee for four years, and was elected by the legislature to the Senate in 1857. In his congressional service, he sought passage of the Homestead Bill which was enacted soon after he left his Senate seat in 1862. Southern slave states seceded to form the Confederate States of America, including Tennessee, but Johnson remained firmly with the Union. He was the only sitting senator from a Confederate state who did not resign his seat upon learning of his state's secession. In 1862, Lincoln appointed him as military governor of Tennessee after most of it had been retaken. In 1864, Johnson was a logical choice as running mate for Lincoln, who wished to send a message of national unity in his re-election campaign; and became Vice-President after a victorious election in 1864.

Johnson implemented his own form of Presidential Reconstruction, a series of proclamations directing the seceded states to hold conventions and elections to reform their civil governments. Southern states returned many of their old leaders and passed Black Codes to deprive the freedmen of many civil liberties, but Congressional Republicans refused to seat legislators from those states and advanced legislation to overrule the Southern actions. Johnson vetoed their bills, and Congressional Republicans overrode him, setting a pattern for the remainder of his presidency. Johnson opposed the Fourteenth Amendment which gave citizenship to former slaves. In 1866, he went on an unprecedented national tour promoting his executive policies, seeking to break Republican opposition. As the conflict grew between the branches of government, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act restricting Johnson's ability to fire Cabinet officials. He persisted in trying to dismiss Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, but ended up being impeached by the House of Representatives and narrowly avoided conviction in the Senate. He did not win the 1868 Democratic presidential nomination and left office the following year.

Johnson returned to Tennessee after his presidency and gained some vindication when he was elected to the Senate in 1875, making him the only former president to serve in the Senate. He died five months into his term. Johnson's strong opposition to federally guaranteed rights for black Americans is widely criticized; he is regarded by many historians as one of the worst presidents in American history.

US stamps depicting Andrew Johnson

1886 Died: Franz Liszt, Hungarian pianist, composer, and conductor (b. 1811)

Franz Liszt (22 October 1811 – 31 July 1886) was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor, music teacher, arranger, and organist of the Romantic era. He was also a writer, a philanthropist, a Hungarian nationalist and a Franciscan tertiary.

Liszt gained renown in Europe during the early nineteenth century for his prodigious virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was a friend, musical promoter and benefactor to many composers of his time, including Frédéric Chopin, Richard Wagner, Hector Berlioz, Robert Schumann, Camille Saint-Saëns, Edvard Grieg, Ole Bull, Joachim Raff, Mikhail Glinka, and Alexander Borodin.

A prolific composer, Liszt was one of the most prominent representatives of the New German School (Neudeutsche Schule). He left behind an extensive and diverse body of work which influenced his forward-looking contemporaries and anticipated 20th-century ideas and trends. Among Liszt's musical contributions were the symphonic poem, developing thematic transformation as part of his experiments in musical form, and radical innovations in harmony.

Stamps from various countries depicting Franz Liszt

1918 Died: Peter Rosegger, Austrian poet and author (b. 1843)

Peter Rosegger (original Roßegger ) (31 July 1843 – 26 June 1918) was an Austrian writer and poet from Krieglach in the province of Styria. He was a son of a mountain farmer and grew up in the woodlands and mountains of Alpl. Rosegger (or Rossegger) went on to become a most prolific poet and author as well as an insightful teacher and visionary.

In his later years, he was honored by officials from various Austrian universities and the city of Graz (the capital of Styria). He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature three times. He was nearly awarded the Nobel Prize in 1913 and is (at least among the people of Styria) something like a national treasure to this day.

1938 – Bulgaria signs a non-aggression pact with Greece and other states of Balkan Antanti (Turkey, Romania, Yugoslavia).

The Salonika Agreement (also called the Thessaloniki Accord) was a treaty signed on 31 July 1938 between Bulgaria on the one hand and the Balkan Entente—the states of Greece, Romania, Turkey and Yugoslavia—on the other. The signatories were, for the former, Prime Minister Georgi Kyoseivanov and, for the latter, in his capacity as President of the Council of the Balkan Entente, Ioannis Metaxas, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Greece.

The agreement was the result of the realization by the Entente that Bulgaria alone could not threaten the members of the Entente acting in concert, and that the Bulgarian government desired to follow a policy of peace. There were at least two signs of this. A protocol signed at Belgrade on 17 March 1934 by the Balkan Entente was published privately in May, revealing that the members had plans to jointly occupy Bulgaria if efforts to suppress terrorist organizations operating out of her territory were not successful. The new Bulgarian government of Kimon Georgiev, coming to power on 19 May, responded to the private revelation by clamping down on the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization. Then, on 24 January 1937, Bulgaria concluded a treaty of eternal friendship with Yugoslavia, which was approved by the other members of the Entente. (Initially Greece was very hostile.) In November 1936, the chiefs of staff of the four Balkan powers signed a draft military alliance, which was subsequently confirmed as an integral part of the Balkan Pact at the meeting of the Balkan Council on 15–18 February 1937.

The agreement removed the arms restrictions placed on Bulgaria after World War I by the Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine, and allowed her to occupy the demilitarised zone bordering Greece. The demilitarised zones along the Turkish borders with Bulgaria and Greece, a result of the Treaty of Lausanne, were also abandoned. All the parties committed to a policy of non-aggression, but Bulgaria was not forced to abandon her territorial revisionism.

Stamps issued by the four Balkan Entente countries

1993 Died: Baudouin, King of Belgium (b. 1930)

Baudouin (Dutch: Boudewijn, German: Balduin; 7 September 1930 – 31 July 1993) was the King of the Belgians, following his father's abdication, from 1951 until his death in 1993. He was the last Belgian king to be sovereign of the Congo.

He was the elder son of King Leopold III (1901–83) and his first wife, Princess Astrid of Sweden (1905–35). Because he and his wife, Queen Fabiola, had no children, at Baudouin's death the crown passed to his younger brother, Albert II.


Some Belgian stamps depicting King Baudouin